Friday June 17, 2011

This morning I decided to learn the days of the week in Swahili! So to say “today is Friday 17 June, 2011” you’d say “Leo ni Ijumaa tarehe kumi na saba, mwezi wa sita, mwaka elfu mbili kumi na moja” which actually reads “today is Friday date seventeen, month june, two thousand and eleven”. Quite a lot of work to say the date, haha!

There can be no assumption that today’s majority is “right” and others are “wrong.” A way of life that is odd or even erratic but interferes with no right or interests of others is not to be condemned because it is different.
-- Justice Warren Burger

At one of our Swahili lessons our teacher mapped out the contrasts between African and Canadian culture. Although I’ve been experiencing and noticing the differences personally every day, it was helpful to see them down on paper. Some of the main differences we discussed were direct versus indirect speech, time, status, guilt/shame, religion, certainty/uncertainty, and individual/collective. With direct versus indirect speech, Canadians are very to the point and often get annoyed or just altogether leave out unnecessary speech in order to get their point across and get the ‘job’ done, so to speak. Whereas Tanzanians are more likely to just talk to each other more randomly even if it goes off topic and this is accepted and enjoyed. Time is another factor that is looked at through a very different lens! In Tanzania time is plenty and in Canada time is money! Canadians constantly feel rushed and have the mentality that they need to get as much as they can done in as quick as possible…no time to waste! We could learn a lot from Tanzanian’s in this regard because they are much more laid back about their understanding of time. They never seemed rushed and being late is not considered rude or uncommon. It seems like people spend a lot of time waiting around and ‘wasting’ time, but it’s that they are less stressed about it and don’t considered it being ‘wasted’ when they spend those extra minutes talking to a friend or the like. Status is something that you must work for in Canada, for the most part, but in Tanzania status is ascribed, therefore you acquire it from things like old age. When you do something that you know you shouldn’t, like stealing, you tend to feel guilt regardless of whether you’ve been caught or not, so for example, in Canada if you stole something and got away with it most people would still feel guilty, but in Tanzania most people would not feel guilty they would feel shame and only if they were caught. I found this difference really interesting because it depends on whether someone else has caught them do they feel shame, therefore if they get away with something it doesn’t affect them as much and they don’t worry about it. Another difference is our feeling of certainty in Canada, we tend to take risks and not worry or fear about trying new things. In Tanzania, they are more uncertain in this regard and often won’t take risks or try new things, such as changing jobs. And a pretty obvious difference is our individualistic culture and their collectivist culture. We are raised to think for ourselves and do things for ourselves rather than for others. We don’t work as a team and we constantly strive for individual gains even at the expense of others. In Tanzania, they think about others and will often forego individual gain if the gain for the larger collective group is greater. Through my experiences here, I’ve noticed this in the children when we play games, they are noticeably less competitive then the children back home. They aren’t as worried about winning a game and will help each other rather than trying to be the winner or doing better than their peers. In addition, a major difference is that I’ve rarely ever seen them fight! They tend to just share better, for example, if someone has a book or toy that another child wants and that child comes over and takes that toy, the kid who had it in the first place will let the other kid have it and they will go get another, no big deal! This blew my mind because I always expect a fight to break out but it never does!

These are only some of the differences between our cultures, and these are minor differences, but in regards to the quote above it’s so important not to have the perspective that your way is the right way or you won’t enjoy your time in a different country. You have to be open to different ways of life and just enjoy the differences, without thinking it’s not as good as the way you do it at home, etc. Neither way is superior, their only different! And often when you are open minded you’ll realize new ways of doing things that are better! Sometimes there are differences that you may not agree with, but you have to be considerate of the culture and their practices without putting them down or lecturing locals about it because it’s something they believe in.

Usiku mwema, lala fofofo! (Goodnight, sleep like a log!)